How to Start a Profitable Mommy Blog During Your Child’s Nap Times

It’s possible to start a profitable blog but it takes determination, hard work, and persistence. Here you will learn the basics of starting a mom blog.

If you are searching for ways to make money overnight, this is not the post for you. Earning money with a blog is a long-term goal that can take several months to accomplish.

The key to building a profitable blog is understanding that you will spend lots of time serving.

Let me explain…

You can start a blog to get rich but if you hate what you are blogging about your readers may pick up on that and even if they don’t, you’ll end up unhappy because you will have just created another job for yourself that you don’t enjoy. However if you start a blog to genuinely help people accomplish their goals, well that’s service and where there is quality service to be provided, there is a chance at profitability.

So, focus on service and then monetization. 

While you are learning how to serve your readers, be committed to the blogging process, there are undeniable benefits.

THE BENEFITS OF BLOGGING 

When I walked away from my last job to stay home with my daughter, it was my goal was to find something that was flexible, impactful, and enjoyable. 

For so many reasons, blogging was the right answer for me. Here’s why:

• You can get paid to do something you enjoy.
• You can connect with people and solve their problems.
• You can earn enough to quit your job (or replace your income).
• The income you earn can be passive.
• You can be location independent.
• You can be in control of how you spend your time.

As a new mom, I wanted a lifestyle of flexibility in my work scheduling and ultimately that meant I needed to be working for myself.

I decided to go all in on the idea of being my own boss and I launched a blog. 

WHAT IS A BLOG?

A blog is a platform you create to share inspiration and information. Profitable blogs help people accomplish their goals and solve their problems. It should provide people with a resource for valuable and reliable content.

• A profitable blog is not a journal about you. 

A successful blog is about your audience.

HOW TO CREATE A PROFITABLE BLOG

1. INVEST IN YOUR BLOG FROM THE START

If you want to have a profitable blog, you are essentially starting a business. Your blog is your business and you will want to invest in a quality website builder, hosting company, and domain name. 

So many people try to go the free route with their blogs, but earning money on a free platform is extremely difficult.

Website Builder

Give yourself a good start and avoid the hassle of needing to transfer your website after you’ve already started by building your website on a self-hosted WordPress.org (NOT WordPress.com).

Hosting 

WordPress.org is free but hosting your website with quality hosts like Bluehost, Siteground, or Bigscoot isn’t free.  Ensuring your website is self-hosted allows you to own your content, earn income with ads, and customize your website with tons of options that aren’t available on free platforms. 

Domain Name

Your domain name is tech talk for website name. Choose a name that is easy to spell and be sure to do a bit a research before choosing your domain name. 

Why? Sometimes, the name you want is taken, trademarked, or very similar to another name that is already well branded. 

I like to use sites like Hover.com to check the availability of domains and social media.

Tip: Most hosting sites will offer free domain name registration for the first year. It’s a nice feature but I’ve found it nice to have my hosting and domain name on separate platforms.

Themes

Themes and templates make your blog pretty.

WordPress offers free and paid themes. There is nothing wrong with starting out with a free theme, many are elegant and professional looking, some just lack the ability to customize. In the beginning, customization isn’t as important as content, so you can always use a free theme and then upgrade later. Do not feel obligated to rush and purchase a theme. Take your time and explore.

2. DECIDE HOW YOU’LL SERVE

It may be surprising but let’s be clear, blogging is totally about service. 

• A fashion blog can help women find affordable fashions within their budgets.
• A finance blog can help people find ways to live well and spend less money.
• A home decor blog can help people design spaces that inspire.
• A mom bog can help busy moms with time management and positive parenting.
• A clean beauty blog can help buyers be aware of greenwashing and clean products. 

No matter what topic you choose for your blog, your goal should be to help the people who are reading your posts. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Decided early on, how you can use the skills you have to serve your audience. It will make connecting with your audience and monetizing your blog less challenging. 

Tip: You could choose your niche/topic based on earning potential but I recommend finding a niche that you actually would enjoy writing about for years that has earning potential. 

3. WRITE GREAT SEO CONTENT

You may have heard the popular phrase “Content is King”. It’s true.

After you invested in a professional and self-hosted website that is customized and has a pretty awesome name, the real work begins.

You have to write content that drives interest and traffic. 

How do you this? 

• Write content that people search in for in search engines.
  • How to post and list posts are a great start.
• Write using headers and short paragraphs. Make it easy to skim.
• Use beautiful photographs. *Make sure you take your own or use stock photos to avoid copyright infringement.
• Connect with story-telling.
• Answer the difficult questions that people you are trying to serve have.
• Hang out where your audience hangs and listen and address their concerns.
• Be authentic when providing advice and information.
• Respect your readers by only creating content that you’d read if you searched for your posts.

4. DRIVE TRAFFIC

If content is King, then traffic is Queen. 

I used to think that writing a post and pushing publish would be enough to thrive as a blogger. I thought wrong. Hitting the publish button is just the beginning of a post’s journey.

There are literally millions of new posts, articles, and editorials published each day and getting eyes on your posts will be the real job of blogging for traffic and profit. 

How do you get traffic to your blog?

• Pinterest- In my experience, Pinterest has been the fastest way to drive traffic. The resources that help me drive thousands of visitors to my site included:
  • Carly’s Pinteresting Strategies
  • BBC Pinterest
• Other social media- Youtube, Facebook may also drive traffic depending on your niche. 
• Google- Invest some time to learn about SEO or search engine optimization. While social media traffic is nice, it can be very inconsistent. Google search engine traffic is more reliable.
• Email Marketing- Start building your email list asap. When you have a large readership, you can send your content directly to their inboxes, no algorithms. 

5. BUILD YOUR EMAIL LIST AND CONNECT

Email is huge for bloggers because it is how you will stay in touch with your audience. Social media is great but unreliable. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and even Google have algorithms that control what people see on their platforms. If you are in someone’s inbox that is more valuable than any follower counts. 

Why?

Most people check their emails frequently and if you have something they want to hear or understand, they will open your emails and click through to read your content. If you aren’t social media savvy and mildly introverted like me, this is a great way to connect with your audience. 

How do you get people on your email list?

Choose an ESP (Email Service Provider)

Your website needs to have an easy way for people to sign up and get on your email list. Email service providers for bloggers include MailChimp, Mailerlite, MadMiMi, Converkit, and others.

I recommend getting started MailChimp which is free for 2000 subscribers. Then moving on to Convertkit as you grow big. 

Getting people on your email list

If you want to get people on your email list, offer more than just newsletter updates. Give something irresistible or useful that can help your audience right now. Here are some incentives you can create to get people to subscribe:

• Printables
• Checklists
• Free guides
• Ebooks
• Ecourses

Make sure your incentives are intentionally very specific to who you want on your email list. For example, I want pregnant women on my list, so I offer a pregnancy challenge and a trimester checklist. Once I have my desired audience on my list, I can write to them and for them and provide amazing value. 

6. LEARN, LEARN, LEARN

When I started blogging with the goal to earn an income, I had so much to learn. I started with free courses (I recommend you do too) and then I started taking the paid courses to get the expertise of bloggers that are successful.  

Related: Brilliant Things You Can Do When You Can’t Afford that Expensive Blogging course. 

The free courses and incentives will allow you to decide if you like a blogger’s style of teaching and gain trust (as you’ll be subscribed and entered into sales funnels designed to build trust).  Use your best judgment before shelling out your hard-earned coins but don’t try to do it all alone. 

If someone you trust has already done the hard work of finding exactly what you need, save yourself some time and invest. 

7. Persistence

You don’t have to be perfect at anything to be a successful blogger, but you do need to be persistent.

Why?

• You will get frustrated.
• You will get overwhelmed.
• You will want to quit.
• You will mess up.
• You will not be the best when you start.

These all sound like great reasons to quit blogging and I’ve felt and done all these things. But I never gave up. I made my first $100 and it gave me the motivation and belief I needed to earn my first $1000.

You can be a profitable blogger, it will not happen overnight but with time and effort, YOU CAN DO THIS.